I created this thread in May of 2009 (before the French Open that year). At the time Nadal was behind Borg in Roland Garros wins - he only had 4 at that stage - so I had Nadal at second. But given that Nadal is at 7 now (and with all his other clay titles) - I think we now have to proclaim him number 1 all time on the surface. He will eventually get the record for the most open era clay titles (Vilas holds that record for the time being), but even if he doesn't he still is the best of all time on that surface.

(I will say that I am certain that Borg would have won the 1977 and 1982 French Opens if he had competed in them - but that's down to him - Nadal shouldn't be penalised because Borg didn't show up).

Even before this RG it was rather clear Nadal had the best overall record on clay, at least in the open era, unless you believe RG should be the one and only measure. The most important tournaments in the red clay season were much the same then as now: MC, Rome, RG... and Nadal has a whole bunch of titles in all those tournaments, a lot more than Borg. He also has more clay titles overall, and his career winning percentage on the surface is an astonishing 93%, almost 7 full points ahead of Borg -- an enormous difference, really. It is very hard, probably impossible, to find that level of domination by any player on one particular surface for such a long period (Sampras on grass, dominant as he was, had a 83.3 winning percentage by comparison).

Do we view Federer's losses to Nadal on Clay (being the majority of matches they have played against each other) in a more positive light? After all Federer lost to the best player of all time on the surface! Hence, he isn't doing at all bad playing Nadal hard on all but one of the matches (I am only aware of the French Open 2008 being the only time that Nadal completely overwhelmed Federer on that surface). Keep in mind that Clay is Federer's worst surface. So playing the best clay player of all time on your worst surface - not so bad if you lose. And to get a couple of wins - well that's just cream.

My feeling is that it is exactly the same case with Borg and McEnroe - if the majority of matches they had played had been on clay (as it turned on, they didn't even play one). McEnroe might have just 1 victory on clay against Borg at most.

But there are also questions on how good Nadal was when he was starting to beat Federer on clay. Nadal was a teen when he was defeating Federer on red clay. My opinion is that Nadal is a superior player on clay now to his teen years. I think he has a better serve, backhand, volley and he hits harder. So how do we judge Federer's performances against Nadal in the early days when he would on occasion defeat Nadal on clay?

As far as the great clay players of all time here are some candidates in no order.
Borg
Rosewall-Rosewall won a ton of French Pros, many of them on red clay at Roland Garros. He also won the French Championship (now the French Open) as an amateur and the first French Open in 1968 over Rod Laver. And you can add a lot of other top clay tournaments that he won.
Nadal
Tilden
Kuerten
Wilander
Lendl
Laver
Lacoste
Cochet
Muster
Bruguera
von Cramm

But there are also questions on how good Nadal was when he was starting to beat Federer on clay. Nadal was a teen when he was defeating Federer on red clay. My opinion is that Nadal is a superior player on clay now to his teen years. I think he has a better serve, backhand, volley and he hits harder. So how do we judge Federer's performances against Nadal in the early days when he would on occasion defeat Nadal on clay?

As far as the great clay players of all time here are some candidates in no order.
Borg
Rosewall-Rosewall won a ton of French Pros, many of them on red clay at Roland Garros. He also won the French Champions (now the French Open) as an amateur and the first French Open in 1968 over Rod Laver. And you can add a lot of other top clay tournaments that he won.
Nadal
Tilden
Kuerten
Wilander
Lendl
Laver
Lacoste
Cochet
Muster
Bruguera
von Cramm

As far as the great clay players of all time here are some candidates in no order.
Borg
Rosewall-Rosewall won a ton of French Pros, many of them on red clay at Roland Garros. He also won the French Champions (now the French Open) as an amateur and the first French Open in 1968 over Rod Laver. And you can add a lot of other top clay tournaments that he won.
Nadal
Tilden
Kuerten
Wilander
Lendl
Laver
Lacoste
Cochet
Muster
Bruguera
von Cramm

Nice list, I'll add Vilas, Trabert, Gimeno (for a while in the mid 60s he was able to beat both Rosewall and Laver on clay). I'll also add the Dohertys and Tony Wilding, they dominated Monte-Carlo when it was the greatest clay tournament.

Do we view Federer's losses to Nadal on Clay (being the majority of matches they have played against each other) in a more positive light? After all Federer lost to the best player of all time on the surface! Hence, he isn't doing at all bad playing Nadal hard on all but one of the matches (I am only aware of the French Open 2008 being the only time that Nadal completely overwhelmed Federer on that surface). Keep in mind that Clay is Federer's worst surface. So playing the best clay player of all time on your worst surface - not so bad if you lose. And to get a couple of wins - well that's just cream.

If you lose to the claycourt GOAT most of the times that you meet him on clay, that's is no great knock. Not in general -- though I do think Federer should have won the Rome match in '06. He flubbed those two match points, but purely skill-wise, he had the claycourt GOAT beaten in that match.

The difference between Nadal and Federer on clay is decisive, but it is not as stark as Borg's superiority over Vilas, who is universally acknowledged as a great claycourter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pc1

But there are also questions on how good Nadal was when he was starting to beat Federer on clay. Nadal was a teen when he was defeating Federer on red clay. My opinion is that Nadal is a superior player on clay now to his teen years. I think he has a better serve, backhand, volley and he hits harder. So how do we judge Federer's performances against Nadal in the early days when he would on occasion defeat Nadal on clay?

i would agree that Nadal got better on clay, but the bulk of his improvement as a tennis player came on other surfaces. Especially on hard court -- he went from being essentially a nobody, to winning two majors and a gold medal on that surface. His improvement on clay is not so dramatic. That's the surface best suited to his game, for one thing. And that surface is the one on which players tend to mature the earliest (think of Chang and Wilander winning RG at 17, Borg at 18, Nadal at 19). Maybe the reason for that is that a baseline game is easiest to develop when young, whereas other things like SV take longer (not that Nadal serve-and-volleys, but you get the point).

Basically I'm saying that Nadal in 2005, on clay, rather than on other surfaces, was closest to his later peak.

On the point about Federer beating Nadal when Nadal was young: those two wins, in Hamburg and Madrid, were fairly late. Hamburg was in '07, just a year away from Rafa's first straight-set sweep of RG. Madrid was in '09 and surely Nadal had hit his claycourt peak already.

I'm not sure that he's improved as a claycourter to any significant degree since '08. Maybe you could argue that in '10 he was slightly better, but I really think on clay you need young legs, and I'm not sure he's as fast today as he used to be.

Do we view Federer's losses to Nadal on Clay (being the majority of matches they have played against each other) in a more positive light? After all Federer lost to the best player of all time on the surface! Hence, he isn't doing at all bad playing Nadal hard on all but one of the matches (I am only aware of the French Open 2008 being the only time that Nadal completely overwhelmed Federer on that surface). Keep in mind that Clay is Federer's worst surface. So playing the best clay player of all time on your worst surface - not so bad if you lose. And to get a couple of wins - well that's just cream.

My feeling is that it is exactly the same case with Borg and McEnroe - if the majority of matches they had played had been on clay (as it turned on, they didn't even play one). McEnroe might have just 1 victory on clay against Borg at most.

It could very well be that clay is his best surface. He said he grew up on it. Without Nadal, people today would probably say CLAY is federer's best surface. He probably would have had 6 FOs and truckloads of masters on it.

But there are also questions on how good Nadal was when he was starting to beat Federer on clay. Nadal was a teen when he was defeating Federer on red clay. My opinion is that Nadal is a superior player on clay now to his teen years. I think he has a better serve, backhand, volley and he hits harder. So how do we judge Federer's performances against Nadal in the early days when he would on occasion defeat Nadal on clay?

I am of the opinion that Rafa's peak level on clay was 2005-2008. After that, his footspeed has started to decline bit by bit. Today is he still very fast but certainly not in the same ballpark. That footspeed was what enabled him to withstand peak federer on clay. As a Nadal fan I truly believe that if you put peak federer on clay today, he would destroy Nadal. Both Bruguera and Moya recently claimed that in 2005-2006 they thought Federer was the better claycourter but Nadal's speed and movement and the never give up attitude was what enabled him to come out on top. It wasn't until 2007 they started believing Rafa was the better one on the red dirt.

It could very well be that clay is his best surface. He said he grew up on it. Without Nadal, people today would probably say CLAY is federer's best surface. He probably would have had 6 FOs and truckloads of masters on it.

Sorry there, I just don't think that correlates with the record. His wins on faster surfaces seem to come much easier to him. Look at his WTF record for example. He enjoys a more attaching game that Roland Garros and the Australian Open just don't suit - being the two slow Grand Slams. He IS strong on clay - but that is just because his game is so solid overall. But I don't think any commentator would say it is his best surface. His best surface I think is fast hard court (so US Open).

Federer's losses at Roland Garros exactly parallel Nadal's losses at the WTF. Nadal can do well - eg make the finals in his peak fast court year (2010) but it isn't enough really to put him over the top on his worst surface (indoor). The French Open is more well known and has a higher profile that the WTF hence the Federer losses are talked about more than the Nadal losses at the WTF.

Sorry there, I just don't think that correlates with the record. His wins on faster surfaces seem to come much easier to him. Look at his WTF record for example. He enjoys a more attaching game that Roland Garros and the Australian Open just don't suit - being the two slow Grand Slams. He IS strong on clay - but that is just because his game is so solid overall. But I don't think any commentator would say it is his best surface. His best surface I think is fast hard court (so US Open).

Federer's losses at Roland Garros exactly parallel Nadal's losses at the WTF. Nadal can do well - eg make the finals in his peak fast court year (2010) but it isn't enough really to put him over the top on his worst surface (indoor). The French Open is more well known and has a higher profile that the WTF hence the Federer losses are talked about more than the Nadal losses at the WTF.

I don't think so. Nadal has only made one final there, whereas federer has made the finals of every clay court tournament he entered during his peak but was beaten by Nadal. Take Nadal out of the equation and we would saying federer is right up there with Borg. Without Nadal, he was untouchable on clay during his peak years. The WTF in last couple of years has been slow. Nadal is pretty much always washed up at the end of season, that for me is the major factor why he never could never make an impression there. He will never win it I think. Nadal can play on fast courts, he proved this by winning Madrid indoors as early as 2005 and by reaching the Paris indoors as well. Nadal always plays his best in the first half of the season and because the big indoor tournaments are played in latter half when he is already drained, he cannot make an impact.

Sorry there, I just don't think that correlates with the record. His wins on faster surfaces seem to come much easier to him. Look at his WTF record for example. He enjoys a more attaching game that Roland Garros and the Australian Open just don't suit - being the two slow Grand Slams. He IS strong on clay - but that is just because his game is so solid overall. But I don't think any commentator would say it is his best surface. His best surface I think is fast hard court (so US Open).

Agreed to that, Federer plays much more "first strike" tennis than Nadal. It's why his winners, and consequent errors, are always higher than Nadal's. And that sort of aggressive game pays off better the faster the surface is. Clay tends to blunt it, and to reward consistency and a low error count.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The-Champ

I don't think so. Nadal has only made one final there, whereas federer has made the finals of every clay court tournament he entered during his peak but was beaten by Nadal. Take Nadal out of the equation and we would saying federer is right up there with Borg.

Without Nadal he'd have 6 French Opens but also 7 Wimbledons. He would still have 5 USO and 4 AO -- his lower counts in the hardcourt majors due to the fact that Djokovic's best surface is hard court. Djokovic has already beaten Federer twice at the AO and twice at the USO.

Overall though, those numbers would not be evidence that clay was Federer's best surface. If anything grass would be seen as his best (going strictly by major count which is not all there is to it).

But there are also questions on how good Nadal was when he was starting to beat Federer on clay. Nadal was a teen when he was defeating Federer on red clay. My opinion is that Nadal is a superior player on clay now to his teen years. I think he has a better serve, backhand, volley and he hits harder. So how do we judge Federer's performances against Nadal in the early days when he would on occasion defeat Nadal on clay?

As far as the great clay players of all time here are some candidates in no order.
Borg
Rosewall-Rosewall won a ton of French Pros, many of them on red clay at Roland Garros. He also won the French Championship (now the French Open) as an amateur and the first French Open in 1968 over Rod Laver. And you can add a lot of other top clay tournaments that he won.
Nadal
Tilden
Kuerten
Wilander
Lendl
Laver
Lacoste
Cochet
Muster
Bruguera
von Cramm

It's really hard to compare players of different eras. But just for fun, I'd go with Nadal, Borg, Rosewall, Vilas, Kuerten, Federer, Lendl ... at their peaks, of players that I've seen play on clay. There have been so many great clay court players. It's very hard to choose. But in my mind the players I mentioned seem to me to be the best I've seen, with Nadal the best.